Book Review: Marshmallow Math: Early Math for Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Primary School Children

  by Trevor Schindeler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I originally picked this book up to get ideas for simple counting and math games for Scientist. I was pleasantly surprised to find, not only the games I was looking for, but a philosophy about teaching math to young children that I agree with.

This book focuses on how to teach solid math principles instead of just memorizing equations and rules. It encourages using objects (i.e. marshmallows, pennies, jelly beans etc.) over written numbers in the early stages of math so that children can see and physically manipulate the numbers they are trying to work with, and gain a understanding of what they are actually doing with each equation. Most importantly, it does this in game format to make it fun.

Other things I liked about the book...it encourages short, focused, fun time periods for doing math, instead of long stretches with lots of "work". It is easy to read and simple to understand, as in, they don't spend pages and pages trying to convince you why their method works or is better. In fact, each chapter is only about a page long. The book itself is only 153 pages, which includes charts and game boards that you can print out to use. Also, the concepts start with simple things for toddlers, and gradually advance in difficulty to about a 1st or 2nd grade level. So the book and it's ideas will be useful for awhile.

I would recommend this book for anyone out there with younger children looking for fun ways to include math into your everyday playtime activities.

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College Without High School

Legos seem to be of far more interest around here than school, but with eighth grade looming before us, I've started ramping up my research on homeschooling or "unschooling" high school. A few weeks ago I came across College Without High School by Blake Boles . What a great read! His educational research was inspired by Grace Llewellyn and John Taylor Gatto, both of whom I find to be a bit extremist and not terrible concrete in their advice, but thankfully, Blake's book is very practical and inspiring. His approach to unschooling is very similar to my own. It's all about following your dreams and studying the things you love but also making a plan and setting goals. I found this so much more helpful than just a lot of talk about living wild and free. He even talks about how occasionally you may need to buckle down and learn something you don't love because you know it will be useful in helping you accomplish your goals. He provides in depth guidance in how to establish your goals and carefully explains what you need to do to satisfy college entrance requirements. I would recommend reading this even if you don't have teenagers yet, just to give you an idea of the possiblities that unschooling can provide. Now if I can just figure out how to make legos a legitimate subject we'll be all set!